


Tonight, Your Ghost

by allegorica



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Accidental Demon Summoning, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Face-Sitting, Femdom, Light BDSM, Oral Sex, Porn with Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:47:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26325121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allegorica/pseuds/allegorica
Summary: John and Zari attempt to roleplay. Zari plays her part too well and accidentally summons a demon.
Relationships: John Constantine/Zari Tomaz | Zari Tarazi
Comments: 6
Kudos: 30





	Tonight, Your Ghost

**Author's Note:**

> Bless the Legends of Tomorrow writers room for continuously serving up that good food, by which I mean I hoped these two would hook up because they're my favorites and then they did. Then, this appeared in my brain and I had to exorcise it somehow, so here we are. 
> 
> Content warnings: 
> 
> Light BDSM — the domination and submission is there (still relatively light) but nobody is physically hurt during the sex scene  
> Violence — mostly canon-typical, but I feel like injuries usually fade pretty fast, given the nature of the show, so this may feel a bit more graphic. There is no lasting damage to any character other than a bruise. All the violence is the demon hurting and threatening John (with a knife, at one point), with some threats directed at Zari, or Zari hitting the demon.  
> Self-Loathing — I don't know if this actually needs a warning but both characters have some downer thoughts about themselves that need working out, which makes up the "with feelings" portion of the "Porn with feelings" tag. Figured I'd put it here just in case that kind of thing is going to ruin someone's enjoyment!

Constantine opens his eyes to a dimly lit room, his back to something cool and hard. Not a bed, then, which is a disappointment. He moves to rub his blurry eyes and finds his wrists won’t budge; they’re bound to something, splayed out at his sides. Same with his ankles.

Perhaps not such a disappointment after all.

“You’re awake,” says a female voice. Heels click across the wooden floor, and suddenly she’s squatting at his side, but all he can see are black thigh-high boots. He swallows. “I was—” Zari, her voice uncertain, pauses. “—Concerned.”

“Oh, don’t worry about me, love,” he says. “Very resilient, ol’ Constantine is.”

She stands suddenly, as if she were barefoot instead of wearing stilettos so high and sharp he thinks that she could probably kill a man with them. “I wasn’t _worried_ ,” she says, scathingly, as if the very idea were preposterous. “But when one of us is a wizard or whatever and puts a little sleeping spell on himself to preserve the—” She makes a disgusted noise. “Anyway, maybe _next time_ whichever of us is a wizard might let the person who _isn_ _’t_ a wizard know that no amount of stomping around and yelling and shaking them is going to wake them up, and that they might as well get comfortable because it’s going to be a while.”

Constantine blows a little kiss at her. “No shame in being worried.”

At that, she steps forward, straddling his chest, and presses one of those lovely boots to his chin. She turns his face toward hers with her foot, and now he sees her fully — a black, high-cut bodysuit with a tantalizing zipper down the front, her hair done up in a high ponytail, her makeup and lipstick darker and heavier than usual to match this new look.

“I _said_ I wasn’t worried. You’re going to contradict me?”

He can’t _not_ smirk. “Just teasing, love.”

“Just teasing...?” Zari cocks her head to the side, glaring.

“Mistress?”

“Hm,” she says. She removes her boot from his chin. “Mistress is nice, but let’s go with ‘goddess,’ shall we?”

“Yes, goddess.” Maybe it’s the sleeping spell still wearing off, but the warm brown of her skin, the confidence radiating from her, the smell of sulfur and herbs in the air — she might just _be_ a goddess. Not the ethereal, white-robed kind; the kind cursed by pomegranate seeds, the kind that waits at the crossroads with temptations.

Zari’s mouth twitches like she’s trying to hold back a smile. “Yes, that’ll do. And you’re — recovered?”

“If you make me wait any longer we’re going to see exactly how strong your knots are.”

She clicks her tongue. “Such a _mouth_ on you.” Zari squats over his chest again, this time grabbing his face with one hand. “We’ll have to do something about that, won’t we? But just to check, what is it that you’re going to say if things go too far?”

“They won’t.”

With an exaggerated roll of her eyes, Zari leans down and puts her mouth directly next to his ear. “John Constantine, I will leave you here to rot if you don’t play by the rules.”

He turns his head quickly enough to steal a kiss. Her hot intake of breath is worth it, as is the sharp bite she delivers to his ear in response. Before she can threaten him again, he laughs and repeats the colors as they’d discussed — green for go, yellow for slow down, red for stop.

“Good boy,” Zari says, giving him a gentle pat on the cheek. She stands, allowing him a moment to look up at her towering above him. His focus is sharper now, the spell fully wearing off as it’s replaced by anticipation. He only knows the barest details of what she has in store for him, and looking at her — tall, beautiful, absolutely ready to destroy him — he can hardly wait to find out.

But she steps away, behind him and out of his view. “Where are you going?” he asks. “You haven’t had your wicked way with me yet.”

“Preparations have to be made,” she says.

He twists to follow her voice but the restraints keep him from seeing what she’s doing. He hears a match strike, the sizzle of something being lit on fire. A clink to his right and he sees a twist of smoke rising up from a stone bowl. Savory, heady — wormwood, maybe, or sage. Two very different purposes. But as she’d said, Zari was no practitioner of magic — it was just as likely she’d grabbed things at random. She moves just out of his vision, placing objects around him with some purpose.

“What’s all this?” he asks, but receives no answer. The secrecy was part of the arrangement — hence the sleeping spell — but patience is not one of John Constantine’s virtues, if he has any at all.

“A ritual,” Zari replies, voice light and airy.

“What _kind_ of ritual?”

She stops moving, and he hears the tell-tale _snap_ of a riding crop in an open palm. “Did I say you could ask questions?”

He _could_ press his luck, but he’s gotten little out of this arrangement yet — best to play nice, at least for now. “No, goddess.”

She steps into view, setting black, stumpy candles around him in a circle. He focuses on her instead, all darkness and mystery. “Where’d you get that getup, anyhow? Not the Waverider closet, surely?”

Zari turns over her shoulder to give him a wink and a delightful little shake of her ass. “None of your goddamn business,” she says, and sticks out her tongue. She places the final candle to his right, giving the whole setup a satisfied look-over. From what he can see, it’s a summoning circle, or an approximation of one. The black candles, the smoke, the — _ah_ , he thinks, _that makes me the sacrifice_.

“Nice work, love. So who is it we’re summoning up? Are you taking my liver or my whole life?”

Zari fixes him with a smile that would have him loosening his collar if he could reach it. “Nothing so violent, Constantine, but if you call me ‘love’ again I might introduce you to some violence.” She walks out of sight again and slaps the riding crop into her open palm again, making him flinch. Back in view, she kneels over him, one knee on either side of his body, crop at her side. “Our visitor today is more fond of... _carnal_ pleasures.” As if to illustrate, she grinds her ass into his crotch.

He’d like to hold her there, but his wrists are bound and she eases up before he’s even really had a chance to feel it. Constantine clamps his teeth down on a groan of dissatisfaction — it’s too early in the game to give _that_ up — and opts for being chatty, instead. “So you plan to shag me until a demon appears? Awfully beneficial for me, love.”

She slaps the crop on the floor next to him; he feels the wind rush across the backs of his hands, just above his bindings.

“Goddess,” he says.

In response, Zari places a hand on his stomach, sliding his shirt up and out of his trousers. She presses her lips to his skin, the trail of blond hair leading downward from his navel. “I want you to beg, Constantine,” she says, gazing up at him through heavy lashes. “And you _will_ beg. You will use that smart-ass mouth of yours to _plead_ that I let you come.”

He is not a man given to displays of weakness, but, splayed before her, wrists and ankles bound, he has nowhere to turn. Constantine swallows audibly, feeling gooseflesh ripple over his skin.

Zari unbuttons his shirt one at a time, about midway up his chest. She drags a manicured, pointed nail down his sternum — not pressing, only reminding him that she _could_ — and hooks it under his waistband. “And if you displease me, I’ll feed you to the demon. So will you be displeasing me this evening, John Constantine?”

“No, goddess.” He feels a little breathless.

“Good. I would so _hate_ to watch such a gorgeous body be torn apart because you simply couldn’t listen.” Zari unbuttons his trousers, then walks her fingers up and up his chest, unbuttoning his shirt until all that’s left is his tie, loose and crooked as usual. She draws it tighter — not tight enough to restrict his breath, not tight enough to hurt, but just tight enough to let him know that she could, if she wanted.

He wishes that she would, but says nothing.

She leans forward and presses her lips to his. He tries to deepen the kiss and she gives him a harsh pinch on one nipple, which draws a gasp, half of pleasure, half of pain, from him. Zari smiles against his mouth. “You’re such a terrible listener, John Constantine.”

He likes the way his name sounds in her mouth, the way each consonant sounds as though it has its own punctuation mark. Everything she does is precise, from her high ponytail, not a hair out of place, to the scent of wormwood — it _is_ wormwood — hanging heavy in the air. “Ah,” he says, lips brushing hers, “but you knew that, didn’t you?”

Zari pulls back, her beautiful mouth now out of reach. “I am going to _destroy_ you,” she says, and he bites the inside of his cheek to stop himself from shivering.

Without hesitation, without gentleness, she grabs his cock through his trousers, through his underwear, and squeezes. He hisses through his teeth, but the contact, after long minutes of teasing, still makes him stiffen. Her grip pulses, tightening and loosening, as he struggles to keep his breathing even.

“Are you ready to listen now?”

Constantine thinks about that for a moment. On the one hand, yes, he would very much like for her to start giving him some actual pleasure rather than just hinting at it. On the other, the agonizing slowness of it, the space between pleasure and pain is itself a kind of pleasure, and he’s stubborn enough to drag this on for hours if need be. He’s done it before, and he’s eager to see how far _her_ stubbornness will go.

As if to answer, she tightens her grip until he can feel each individual finger around his cock.

“Yes,” he says, the words tumbling out of his mouth, “yes, goddess.”

Zari’s hand relaxes, and again that serene smile spreads over her mouth. “Good boy,” she says again, and he thinks he might do anything to hear her say it many, many times. She draws down the zipper of his trousers, lifting his hips to pull them lower. Her expression of placidness wavers as she realizes her mistake; there’s no way to entirely remove them, not with his ankles bound.

Constantine can’t resist, the opportunity is too much. “Ah, love,” he says, and knows he’ll be punished for it doubly, now, “you’ll note that most scenes start with the bound party naked or nearly so.”

She shoots him a poisonous look. “And who’s inconvenienced more by this? You or me?”

A fair point. He’s the one looking ridiculous with his trousers around his mid-thigh, limbs akimbo, cock at attention. He opens his mouth, ready to tease her again, but she moves forward and clamps her hand over his lips, tilting his head back and exposing his throat. She drags her teeth along the rise of his Adam’s apple, delivering a sharp little bite at its peak.

“ _What_ do you call me?” she demands. His lips move against her palm, but she doesn’t budge, tugging his tie a little tighter. “I’m sorry,” she says, voice dripping acidity. “I didn’t catch that. What do you call me?”

“Goddess,” he says through her fingers, but the sound is muffled. “Goddess,” he says again, louder this time, and the sound that spills out around her fingers is awkward, fumbling, almost self-conscious. “Goddess,” he repeats, “goddess, goddess, goddess—”

His voice grows in volume until she removes her hand, smiling as he shouts her epithet of choice. “Oh, darling,” she says, delivering a kiss to his neck. “There’s no need to shout.” She moves her thigh to between his legs, rubbing his cock through his briefs. “Try again, quieter this time.”

“Goddess,” he says, voice barely above a whisper. In return, she drags her tongue from his collarbone up his neck.

“Good boy,” she says, her voice like honey. She slips her hand beneath his briefs, reward for his good behavior, and strokes him, grip firm. His eyes fall closed and he forces his breath to remain even, not ragged, not pleading, lest she sense how much he wants it and stop.

But she _does_ stop, because she knows that the only thing more delicious than getting is _wanting._ He opens his eyes and pastes on a smirk as she tugs his briefs down to his trousers, but doesn’t say anything. Again, she grinds her ass into his crotch and smiles when he lets out an inadvertent moan. “Oh,” she says, pure innocence. “Was that uncomfortable for you?”

“Extremely,” he says. “Please, goddess, don’t do it again.”

Zari gives him a look like lemon squeezed in a wound. “Pain is not necessarily part of the summoning ritual, John Constantine, but I will use it if necessary.”

He doesn’t reply, waiting on a knife’s edge to find out what she’ll do.

What she does is unzip her bodysuit halfway, the lovely curves of her breasts spilling out from the loosened fabric. Zari leans back, her face turned away, elbows tucked _just so_ in a way that makes her breasts look especially round. She places a hand on her collarbone, slender fingers tracing a delicate line down her sternum, spreading over her cleavage, rolling a nipple lightly between her thumb and index finger. Though her face is turned away, Constantine can see her tongue part her lips, moistening them, as she caresses herself with great tenderness.

Bound as he is, Constantine can only watch as she touches her breasts, her lips, with trembling fingers. Her shoulders relax, her eyes close, and her breath, deep and even, raises and lowers her chest as he watches. Her right hand, once busy with her breasts, slides lower, hooking the zipper as it goes, until it reaches the end, several inches before her navel.

“Christ,” he says, wanting nothing more than to press his lips to her throat, where he imagines he can see the flutter of her heartbeat. There’s a smile on her face, the sort of smile one might wear before biting into a delicious dessert.

Her fingers slip out of sight, but the way her breath comes faster, the way she bites her lip, is unmistakable. He can only watch as she pleasures herself, imagining that it’s him. Him pleasuring, being pleasured — it doesn’t matter which. The sight of her, cheeks flushed, eyelashes fluttering, drives him half-mad with desire. He imagines she tastes like summer fruit, all tang and sweetness and life.

Zari doesn’t leave him long to wonder. She withdraws her hand and slips two fingers between his lips, which he sucks at, gratefully. She leans forward and her breasts graze his chest; the contact makes his cock twitch, but it’s far from enough.

“I don’t _need_ you,” she whispers in his ear.

Constantine has a smart-ass remark on the tip of his tongue, but before he can speak she grips his cock again, pumping it twice and drawing a small but conspicuous moan from him. The smile that spreads over Zari’s face is almost threatening, like he’s stepped into a trap she’s laid just for him. Somewhere beneath the pleasure that is her hands on him, he supposes he has.

And then she stops, giving a little slap to his thigh. “Don’t forget that,” she says. “I don’t need you. But you—” She gives a little tug at his bindings. “You need me, don’t you?”

Under ordinary circumstances, John Constantine would insist, perhaps even snarl, that he needs nobody and no-one and would huff off to have a drink about it. But Zari is atop him, beautifully, radiantly half-naked, her hand mere inches from his cock. His hands are bound, he’s beginning to ache, and he thinks that he would quite literally summon whatever fantastical demon she’s envisioned for this little scenario if it means she’ll touch him again.

“Yes,” he says, letting his eyes fall closed. “Yes, goddess.”

“ _Yes,_ already?” Zari asks. She runs her hands up his chest, giving him a playful flick to one nipple. “I thought you were made of sterner stuff, John Constantine.”

“Ah, well, full of surprises, aren’t I?”

She cocks her head to the side, letting her eyes rake him from navel to forehead. Gnawing on her lip, she surveys him as one might survey a selection of goods up for purchase. “Hm,” she says, after a moment. “But I don’t know if _I’m_ ready yet.” Again, she drags her hand slowly from her collarbone, tracing her sternum, lingering as her fingers pass between her breasts. “What’s a girl to do?”

If his hands weren’t bound, he’d grab her by the hips and pull her forward until her warm thighs cradled his head. There’s an art to sex, a communication that happens nonverbally as well as verbally; the squeeze of a thigh, the consenting nod or kiss to the neck or a breathy, trembling, “Yes.” Bound, he can only ask, can only make himself vulnerable, can only beg in the way she likes — appealing to her as a goddess.

“Please, goddess,” he says, “I want to taste you.”

Zari leans forward, breathes into his ear. “It’s not about what _you_ want, is it?” She nibbles his earlobe again, and he hears her breath catch as she wriggles above him, her hand disappearing to pleasure herself once again.

“Bloody technicalities,” he says, his brain lust-fogged enough to make finding the right words, the words that will appease her, extremely difficult. Constantine prides himself on his quick wit, his ability to have a comeback or a snarky remark in almost any circumstance. What they’re doing here is a game — he surrenders to her, and she doles out pleasure as she sees fit. But it’s not enough to ask for it; to be denied is a kind of pleasure, but to give is another. He won’t come from bringing her to orgasm, but to see Zari undone, all loose limbs, heaving chest, flushed cheeks, is its own reward.

Only their game is such that he cannot _tell_ her this. He must convince her that it’s what she wants, that it’s what will honor her best. And with her soft moans and his half-hard cock, it’s becoming more difficult to summon up that quick wit. All he wants to do is beg for it, but to beg is to admit defeat and, touch-starved as he is, he’s not yet ready to give up. But — Zari draws a shuddering breath in his ear, a little whimper escaping between her lips — if he doesn’t start playing by her rules, she’ll come without him. Though he’s seen her talent for multiple orgasms first-hand, he’d rather not let her lord it over him.

“Goddess,” he says, resisting the urge to clear his throat as the word comes out a little breathier than he’d like, “let me taste you. Let me — let me _worship_ you. Please.”

For that, a genuine surrender of the cockiness he never feels entirely safe enough to shed, she rewards him with a kiss in the hollow beneath his ear. Zari stands, her heels clicking on the wooden floor as she steps out of view. He hears the rustle of fabric, then the click of her heels again, as she steps back into view — fully naked, radiant, _holy_. Her smile is sly, cheeks flushed, and he can feel his heartbeat in his throat with the intensity of how badly he wants her.

She crouches over him, this time further down, and draws his cock into her mouth with a hum that sends gooseflesh rippling across his entire body. “Christ,” he hisses, struck speechless by how it feels to sink into pleasure after so much teasing, like a steaming hot bath when you’re chilled to the bone. Before he can even process it, she’s moved away, giving him a few quick pumps with her hand before moving back up his body, pressing kisses to every scar along the way.

“Color?” she asks, because a goddess does not ask _permission_ so much as ensure that her worshiper is ready.

“Fucking — green, goddess, green as it is possible to be.” She doesn’t move, not at first, so he babbles, desperate for _something_. “Green as a bloody spring day, as a — as envy, money, as green as you’d fucking like me to be, goddess—”

Zari slides her hand up his neck, gently at first, before seizing a fistful of his hair. The surprise of it cuts him off, as does her lips on his own. Her tongue plunges into his mouth, not gentle, not her usual tentative kiss; this is a claiming, a domination. Before he can respond with passion of his own, she withdraws and moves her body until she is positioned above him. Her thighs tremble a little as she hesitates, and before he’s even thought to speak, “Please” is out of his mouth in a whine some part of him not currently in control of his actions finds utterly contemptible.

She acquiesces. The taste of her is a kind of magic; fuck the candles, burning wormwood, the chants and symbols. Magic is _this_ , the fire of passion, the salt of the sea, breaths drawn and exhaled in pleasure, the slickness between her thighs. For the briefest moment, he pities the person who refuses to perform this most holy act out of some skewed sense of revulsion, before the part of his brain less given to waxing poetic says _shut the fuck up John_ and for once, he listens.

This isn’t the first time he’s tasted her, but it is the first time he hasn’t been able to touch her, too; instead, she guides his face, his lips, his tongue, by tugging this way and that on the fistful of hair she’s seized. Constantine is no stranger to eating people out, and he darts his tongue around her clit, drawing a sharp gasp from her. Zari is a vocal lover; it’s one of the many (perhaps too many) things he likes about her. Too many people have been shamed into silence during sex, and Constantine revels in the gasps, moans, cries of pleasure he can elicit from his partner.

And he does, alternating between sucking and licking at her folds, delighting in the way her breath quickens. Were his hands not bound, he’d finger her as well — as it is, he feels like he’s always a step behind her, unable to keep up. She doesn’t _need_ him, which he thinks ought to bother him, but not _needing_ him means she _wants_ him, which is better by far. Clearly, she doesn’t mind that his hands are bound — this scenario isn’t just for his benefit — and soon enough her thighs begin to tremble, her breath shaky.

It’s not until she leans backward just enough to give his cock a couple of casual strokes that he remembers he has a role to play other than as the throne upon which his goddess sits. Brought back into his body, he realizes he is so hard that it’s almost painful, and he is only moments from begging for release before he remembers that this is a game of sorts, one that he intends to... if not win, at least make it exceptionally difficult for Zari to claim victory. Constantine leans into the pain, the frustration, and redoubles his efforts on worshiping Zari’s clit. She responds with gasps, a renewed grasp on his hair, and a final tremble before she cries out, her chest heaving as the tension flees her body.

And then there is a sound. A small sound, one that Constantine dismisses because his senses are largely overtaken by Zari’s hurried, clumsy smoothing of his hair, the way she keeps twitching as he continues to tease her with his tongue. But then there is the smell of a struck match, a familiar crackle in the air, and Constantine suddenly has an intensely bad feeling about what has happened.

“Zari, please,” he says, and there’s a moment’s hesitation before she shifts back down his body, straddling him, pressing her face into his neck. She kisses the hollow beneath his ear, sucking gently at every tender spot she’s found over the past weeks, and he almost forgets why he’d asked her to move until he feels an unearthly twist in the fabric of this space, a warning that something that ought not be present suddenly is.

“Zari,” he says, in a low voice. “How did you design this... the ritual circle, the herbs, how did you—”

She sits upright at that, fire in her eyes. “I ask the questions, John Constan—”

“No, no, _really_ , did you, ah, make it up, or—”

There’s a snap behind her, from the place that Constantine can’t see. A look of confusion forms on Zari’s face, still flushed from the exertion and the orgasm. “I found it in a book. Why?”

“Was it one of _my_ books?”

She gives him a look of incredulity. “No, one of my many _other_ magic books. _Yes,_ John, it was one of yours—”

A new sound, this time: a low growl. Constantine’s heart begins to beat faster.

“And you, ah, you recreated it exactly, did you?”

Zari’s fury begins to fade, replaced by a crease between her brows. “I wanted it to be authentic.”

“Ah, well, you certainly accomplished that.”

She pales. “What—”

“You don’t happen to remember which demon this circle aimed to summon, do you?”

“No, I—”

He takes a deep breath in through his nose, letting it out slowly between his teeth. “Love — goddess — I’m going to need you to listen very, very carefully to what I ask you to do.”

Zari’s head begins to swivel ever so slightly to look over her shoulder, but Constantine shakes his head. “Shouldn’t I just untie—”

“No time for that, and anyway, you’ve worked a powerful bit of magic here, which means you’re the one most capable of dismissing it. There are rules to magic, and we all play by them, even if we’re on opposing sides.”

Another growl, louder this time.

“You’re going to stand up and face it, whatever it is, and I will walk you through the rest. Try not to panic, love. Do you trust me?”

She nods almost imperceptibly.

There are times when being a snarky bastard has saved his life, but this isn’t one of them. Zari needs his assurance, so he says, “It should go without saying that I trust you, given our current predicament, but rest assured, goddess, I trust you absolutely.”

A firmer nod, at that. She stands, a vision in bare skin and thigh-high black boots. She sets her shoulders and turns to face it, and, finally, Constantine sees it.

He and Zari talked long enough to give it time to shift into a corporeal, human form — a man, tall, slender, in a trim dress shirt and slacks. He looks like the kind of man you might see on a big-city street, walking with the confidence of man whose life is dedicated to wringing as much wealth and time out of the common person’s neck as possible. It’s no coincidence that a demon and such a man would look the same; one begets the other.

“Hello, John Constantine. You’re looking well,” he says, with a smile like a shark’s. He says nothing to Zari — he doesn’t even look at her, his eyes passing over her and boring into Constantine as if to pin him to a card.

Constantine is not a man given to embarrassment, particularly not when that’s precisely what a demon wants from him. He smiles. “Charmed, I’m sure,” he says. “And who might you be?”

The man — the demon — flutters his eyelashes. “I’m offended, John.”

“Pardon me, it’s so difficult to tell one of you snakes from another.” Constantine screws up his face in thought, reading the energy that radiates from the demon like the stench from garbage left out in the sun to rot. And there it is, the particular twist of evil that marks him as familiar. “Ah, Andras. Lovely to see you again.”

“And what circumstances!” He casts an appraising look up and down Constantine’s mostly naked body, letting out a low whistle. “Bored in the bedroom, I see.”

“Hardly,” Constantine says, with a grin.

Zari nudges his thigh. He looks up at her wide eyes, her expression frozen in distress. He winks. Andras is a demon, tricky, wily, as poised to attack as a coiled rattlesnake, but his power isn’t in brute strength or raw magical power. It’s in manipulation, in making people feel small and worthless, unable to fight. All his tricks are already familiar to Constantine; he’s already used them on himself.

Andras begins to walk around the circle, drawing one gorgeous leather shoe through the chalk lines. “I confess, John, I can’t fathom why you’d bother summoning me only to tie yourself up. Is this a death wish? We didn’t part on, hm, _positive_ terms, as you no doubt remember.”

Constantine remembers. Andras had embraced missionary work as a means of soul-harvesting — the kind of manipulative business that made it ripe for exploitation. Banishing him back to Hell had required not just the usual rituals, but also a bitter struggle with the community he’d been influencing. It was ugly and difficult and he’d had nightmares for weeks, drinking himself into a stupor just to escape it.

“A glutton for punishment, I am,” he says. “Offering myself up like a bloody buffet, eh?”

Quick as a blink, there is a wicked-looking knife in Andras’ hand. He won’t kill him outright; Constantine has too many enemies that’ll bicker over who gets to shred his soul for eternity. He’ll make it slow and torturous and leave him alive to be tortured again later. Probably.

At least, he _would_ , if it wasn’t for Zari — unarmed, naked, and woefully underexperienced in dealing with demons Zari. The Zari Andras seems intent on ignoring, as if he can’t see her, as if he doesn’t _want_ to see her. Constantine racks his brain for an explanation and comes up empty, unsure how to communicate to her that she needs to both act and be extremely wary.

And then she roundhouse kicks Andras in the stomach.

Though demons can’t die in their assumed forms, they can very much come to regret being corporeal. Andras does just that — Zari’s boot makes contact with his belly, and there’s a distinct woomf as he becomes acquainted with having the wind knocked out of him. Without missing a beat, Zari spins and chops her other leg down from above, knocking him to the floor with a crack as his jaw makes contact.

“Sara,” she says to Constantine by way of explanation.

He nods, impressed. “He’ll need banishment, and for that you’ll—”

Andras rises to his knees, spitting blood and a tooth out from his mouth. “Cute,” he says, smile tinged red. He grabs the knife from where it’s fallen and moves toward Constantine, not even sparing a glance to the woman who’d kicked him down.

Zari shoots Constantine a look as if to ask if she should continue. He nods as imperceptibly as he can, and she aims a punch at Andras’ neck — one he quickly dodges by stepping out of the way. Again, he ignores her as if she were nothing more than a buzzing gnat; annoying, but not worth more than a cursory swat.

Constantine, bound as he is, is certainly an easier target — not to mention a tempting one, given their history. But Zari is inexperienced and unarmed, yet still taking shots at Andras. The logical thing to do would be to eliminate her before taking his revenge, but he doesn’t. He raises one foot and presses it to the soft space at Constantine’s elbow, leaning just enough to hurt, not enough to break anything. “I’m going to enjoy this, John.”

Zari aims another kick at his back, but Andras dodges again. He doesn’t even spare her a look; he just leans a little more, until Constantine feels the muscles and veins in his elbow shift uncomfortably.

Wincing, eyes blurring from the pain, Constantine tries to make eye contact with Zari, but she’s looking downward. Her lips are parted, expression dejected — and it hits him, suddenly, why Andras has been ignoring her.

“Zari!” he shouts, the sound strangled as Andras increases the pressure on his arm, as if he’s trying to grind him to dust. “Zari, he’s wearing you down, he’s a manipulator, he knows your insecurities and he’s exploiting them.”

When she looks up at him, her eyes are filled with tears.

 _Christ_ , as Andras slowly tries to grind his bones to dust he’s also hard at work exploiting Zari’s insecurities to shut her down. He doesn’t need to physically fight back when he’s perfectly adept at turning her own thoughts against her, whipping up every negative thing she’s ever said or heard about herself to tear at her like a self-defeating whirlwind.

“Zari,” he says, his voice as tender as it’s possible to make it with Andras’s foot boring into his elbow. “I see you, and whatever he’s saying, whatever you’re saying to yourself, it isn’t true. You can shake off this bastard, I promise—” He breaks off, Andras finally drawing a cry of pain from him.

“ _Do_ shut up, John. Nobody likes a mouthy bedmate.”

Constantine can feel sweat beading along his forehead. He grinds his teeth against the pain, growling, “Experience says otherwise, Andras.”

Andras’ smile is hungry as he twirls the knife in his hand. “Oh, I _am_ going to enjoy this,” he says.

With a sickening crack, he falls to the floor. Zari stands behind him, a still-smoking stone bowl reeking of wormwood in her hand. Her makeup runs down her face in streaks, but her expression is righteous fury. “What now?” she asks, her chest heaving with anger.

“Grab the chalk,” Constantine says, the surge of adrenaline letting him tune out the pain, for now. “You’ll need to change the symbols and repair the line he smudged. The line first, then the symbols—”

But Andras is back up, and looking especially furious with a smear of blood along his cheekbone. He kneels next to Constantine, pressing his knife to his throat. “Stop talking, John, or I’ll stop you myself.”

When he swallows, he can feel the blade press into his neck.

Andras blocks his view, but there’s a magical shift in the air — Zari’s fixed the smudged line. Andras is now trapped in the circle, though still every bit as capable of causing Constantine a great deal of pain. He squats beside him, an absurd gesture in a suit that expensive, and walks his fingers daintily up Constantine’s bare chest. “Where to begin?” he muses, knife still pressed to his neck. “Cracking the sternum is my favorite part, but that means everything that follows will have to measure up. Don’t want to set the bar too high right off the bat, hm?”

“Definitely not.”

Zari steps back into view, a piece of chalk in her hand. There’s no real way to convey the necessary steps without speaking aloud — if he’d been given warning or if his hands and feet weren’t bound, he could have prepared a spell to speak to her mentally, but neither of them had anticipated that their game would involve a literal, actual demon. More’s the pity — with the right steps and precautions, that might have been another interesting endeavor. As it is, he’ll simply have to put his mouth to work and walk her through it, hoping Andras doesn’t decide to shut him up permanently.

“Zari,” he says. His voice is raspier than he’d like already, a side-effect of the throbbing pain in his elbow. “Next you’ll need to change the symbols to banishment—” He breaks off with a shout as Andras kneels heavily on his ribcage. “Did — did you see them in the book?”

Zari hasn’t been a Legend long enough to develop the requisite numbness to violence. She drops the chalk, hearing Constantine’s cry of pain, and breaks into two neat halves on the floor. “I — I think so, but—”

“Okay, good. That’s good.” He draws in a slow breath, body adjusting to the sharp ache where Andras’s knee digs into his chest. “Erase the symbols around his name and replace them with what you remember. If you don’t remember, ask.”

Now all he can do is trust her, even as Andras replaces his knee with a sharp jab to the ribs. Constantine is not a physical fighter, never has been, but he’s taken his fair share of punches. He breathes into the pain, letting his face contort into a grimace in the hopes the satisfaction will keep Andras’s attention off Zari. Trained magic-user or no, she’s the one with the chalk and the power to banish Andras.

“John, I—”

Through a groan, he says, “You can do this, love. Magic’s easy — say the words, wave your hands a bit. If I can do it, so can you.”

He can’t see her, but he knows the expression on her face: utter annoyance. In different circumstances, she’d be demanding to know why, if that were true, _everybody_ isn’t using magic. As it is, she’ll have to hold that question for later.

“John,” Andras says, dragging the syllable out into a sort of sing-song taunt. “I’m getting bored. Do you know what happens when I get bored?”

“You leave, with any luck.”

Andras moves to straddle Constantine’s chest, a strange repeat of the scene he and Zari had been playing out before everything went upside-down. “No, John. I’m sure you know that I’d just _love_ to keep you alive, but if your little friend over there doesn’t stop fucking around with things she doesn’t understand, I will happily remove your jugular and let you bleed out all over this floor.”

“Her choice, innit? She summoned you, not me.”

“You see, John, I’m not ready to go just yet.” He presses the knife harder against Constantine’s throat. He imagines the thin skin of his neck bending, bending, until it bursts like the skin of a grape. “I’ve got _plans_ here.” He leans in close, lips practically touching Constantine’s ear. “Get her to stop and I’ll let you walk out of here.”

It _sounds_ like a generous offer — let Andras go, and Constantine gets to keep all the blood in his body. “And Zari?” he asks, because this isn’t his first go-around, not with Andras, and certainly not with demons.

“Ah, well,” he says. “Punishments must be doled out, you know. She probably won’t die, but even if she did — that’s what you do, isn’t it John? Let someone else take the hit to save your own skin? No shame in it, you’re the magician here, you’re the one with your hands in every apocalyptic pie in every timeline. She might have been something somewhere else, another time, another place, but here, now, she’s a social media influencer with no profound impact on the timeline. Let her go.” He whispers the last part loud enough for her to hear. Constantine can hear the sneer in his voice.

The ghosts come back, as they always do: Astra, Ritchie, even Oliver. It doesn’t matter if they’re really haunting him or even if they’re really dead. The knowledge that he could have done something and didn’t, or that he ought to have known something and didn’t, or that he willingly let someone die because _something_ needed to be done to save everyone else haunts him well enough. He’s lived a thousand Trolley Problems and what’s one more on the pile, really?

It’s what he does. Assured of his own importance, he lets someone else fall on the knife. Why stop now? It would be so easy to just give in, to let Andras win, to walk out of here in guilt and self-loathing, as he always does.

Only... _no._ Some small, insistent part of himself says that that offer is all wrong. He’ll fight for his own skin, of course, most of the time, but there’s no either-or, here, no greater sacrifice necessary. Zari’s _wanted_. She’s got a crew and a family that would miss her. Infinite universes, infinite timelines, and always a Zari. There’s meaning there, even if he can’t see it, even if Andras can’t see it, even if Zari herself can’t see it.

“You rotten son of a bitch,” he snarls. Constantine is well and truly angry now — as much at himself as at Andras. He ought to have seen the manipulation, the appeal to his worst nature. He imagines wrapping his hands around Andras’ throat, coaxing them into flame, and leaving two hand-shaped burn marks around his shell as he banishes him back to Hell. For now, he lets out a string of curses before turning his face to Zari, who is looking, panicked, at a series of symbols. “Don’t listen to him, love. I’m here, you’re here, we’re going to beat him. Turn that little squiggly bastard into the symbol that’s like a ‘Q’ with two tails. You’ve almost got it.”

He’s met with a punch square to the jaw, and the world goes black for a moment. Constantine fights his way back to consciousness with a sharp bite to his own lip, certain that if he succumbs to the tempting darkness, he’ll awake to find Zari in pieces.

“You’re so _stupid_ , John,” Andras says, once Constantine has opened his eyes again. “Why are you bothering with her? She’s a vapid, nothing little—”

Constantine spits in his face. It means nothing, but it sure is fun. Andras looks disgusted for the briefest moment before he erupts into laughter. “Oh, how _delightful_ ,” he says, drawing a handkerchief from his suit pocket and wiping the spit away as if it were nothing more than a sheen of sweat. “The awful little man cares for the awful little woman. Both of you useless parasites, hardly better than _me_ —”

“I thought I was important to the timeline,” Constantine says. He draws a sigil in the air with one finger, tracing it over and over again in the hopes that Zari sees and understands.

“A parasite that infects the right person can be important,” Andras says with a wave of his hand. He tosses the handkerchief away and smiles. “Still a parasite, though.”

“I s'pose it takes one to know one.”

Andras clicks his tongue. “Tired, John? That insult is beneath you.” He seizes Constantine by the chin, leaning forward until their eyes meet in a dark parody of his interactions with Zari only minutes earlier. “I would delight in shredding your soul to pieces in Hell but I will settle for destroying you here and now. _Make her stop._ ” He presses into the knife. If he moves it even a fraction of an inch, there will be blood.

“Zari,” he says, quietly, cautiously. “I have the utmost faith in you. Add that little triangle at the top and you’ll be golden.”

Her eyes flick to his for the briefest moment before she drags the chalk to create the final shape. In the same instant, Constantine feels Andras’ body tense, preparing to cut.

But Zari, bless her, is faster. Andras freezes in place, realizing what has happened, his mind clearly scrambling for a way to hold on, to finish what he started. And just like that, he’s gone, a light, inner fire, devouring him from within until there’s nothing holding Constantine down but the cuffs already binding him. The knife slips to the floor, and finally he lets out a long, slow exhale.

She move to him before he’s had a chance to finish exhaling, cutting the bindings away with the abandoned knife. She’s saying something, but Constantine can hardly hear her for the buzzing in his ears. When the buzzing finally recedes, he still can’t hear her for all the colorful curses erupting from his mouth.

The bindings severed, Zari runs her hands over his cheeks, his bare chest. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know—”

“Do _not_ ,” he says, through gritted teeth, “apologize.”

“But I—”

“Not only did you summon a demon on your first _accidental_ attempt, but you successfully banished one without a reference.” He shakes the blood back into his hands, massaging them until the tingling begins to fade. “Do you know how amazing that is, Zari? How rare?” It’s his turn to touch her face now — he runs the back of his fingers down her cheek, ignoring the tremble.

“You could have — I could have—”

“I didn’t, did I? Still here, flesh and blood.” He grabs her by the shoulder, pulling her into an embrace. “Still here, love. You did amazing.”

He feels her draw and exhale a shaky breath, and holds her tighter.

“Don’t listen to him,” he says. Constantine strokes her hair as best he can — it’s still in a high ponytail, still immaculate despite everything they’ve been through in the past hour. “Demons say a lot of things but they’re almost never true.”

“Almost,” she murmurs into his shoulder.

“Who are you going to trust, Zari?” He grabs her by the shoulder again, this time to move her so he can look at her face. “Some demon, or me?”

“Neither of you,” she sniffs. “You’re a filthy liar, too.”

He laughs. “Can’t debate that.” Constantine pulls her in again, presses his lips to her neck. “ _Goddess_.”

“You just got beat up by a demon and you’re already back at it?” she asks, but he feels the way she shifts to allow him easier access to her neck.

“’Beat up?’” He snorts. “That was nothing.”

She runs her hand down his face and he flinches when she reaches his chin. “It’s already turning purple, John.”

“Nothing,” he repeats, burrowing his face further into her neck. “I’ve done more with worse. A bruise is nothing. Let me make it up to you.”

“Let _you_ make it up to _me_?” Zari demands, now taking her turn to push him away. “I almost got you killed!”

“Oh, he wouldn’t have killed me.” Freed from his bindings and denied the press of her body, Constantine pushes his trousers and briefs down and off, now naked on the wood floor. He pats his pockets and draws out a cigarette and lighter, putting it to his lips. “Too messy. I’m good leverage.”

Zari glares at him. “I _heard_ him, John.”

“And I said, didn’t I, that demons say a lot of things.”

“And that you’re a liar.”

He sighs, letting the cigarette dangle from the corner of his mouth. “So he might have killed me,” he says, waving his hands dismissively. “But he didn’t. Because you banished him.”

“ _You—_ ”

“Laid there trussed up like a guinea hen. I might have given you a few pointers but it takes talent to remember a spell you haven’t even used that clearly. Banishing a demon on your first try?” Constantine gives her a smile, ignoring the twinge of pain it causes. “You’re something special, love. I already knew it, but you ought to know it, too.”

“Liar,” she says, but there’s a fondness in her voice.

“But the ones I tell are pretty, aren’t they?” He tweaks her nose, which earns him a scowl, and moves to light his cigarette. She flicks it out of his mouth, smirking.

“The things he said...”

“Lies,” Constantine says. He picks the cigarette up from where it’s fallen and puts it back in his mouth, noting Zari’s wince as he doesn’t dust it off. “Well, maybe not as such. Sounded familiar, didn’t they?”

Zari swallows. “Yes.”

“And who’s saying them to you? Not anyone I know, I hope.”

Silence.

“Yourself, then.”

She nods, almost imperceptibly.

“Demons,” he says. “Scum. _And_ creatively bankrupt. Why do the work of coming up with fresh insults when you could just use someone’s own worst thoughts against them?” He’d spit if he knew it wouldn’t set her scowling. Instead, he flicks his lighter open and closed. “So you’re a liar too."

Zari gives him a venomous look, narrowing her eyes. “Excuse me?”

“All those things you say about yourself. I didn’t hear them, but they’re not true either. You ought to stop listening to liars.” He brings his lighter up to his mouth again, waiting for the inevitable.

True to form, she flicks the cigarette out of his mouth again. “So I shouldn’t listen to you?” She’s smiling, but only halfway.

“Of course not. I’m full of shit.” He gestures to her, scooting the lighter across the floor and leaving his cigarette where it lays. “C’mere. You can not listen to me just as well over here as over there.”

Zari gives him a long, sullen look before moving in close, her bare shoulder bumping his. “I can’t believe this,” she says after a long pause. “How did this happen?”

“Because you’re brilliant,” Constantine says. “ _Too_ brilliant. It takes people ages to study rituals like that and you pull it off by accident.”

“It wasn’t an _accident_ , I just wanted it to be accurate,” she huffs.

“I’m not _complaining,_ " he says. He brushes her cheek with his thumb. “Made things interesting, didn’t you? And proved you’re a _wizard or whatever_ yourself.”

“I am _not_.”

“You could be. It’s a kind of artistry, innit?” He mimes taking a selfie with an imaginary phone. “Take a photo, draw a demon summoning circle. You have a good eye.”

Zari’s eyes are narrow as she regards him. “Stop trying to make me feel better about almost getting us both killed.”

He laughs. “I wouldn’t try to make you feel better even if I could — I’d be a hypocrite, wouldn’t I? How many times have I almost gotten everybody else killed because I had a wild hair up my arse about one thing or another? Ridiculous.”

“I wasn’t worried you’d sacrifice me,” she says after a pause.

He doesn’t turn to her, just turns his eyes in her direction.

“You’re... many things, John. But you’ve also torn the world apart for someone you care about. Jumped into Hell without a care for yourself. Whatever... whatever haunts you, he misread you.” She pauses, moving her hand to stroke Constantine’s forearm gently. “I think you misread yourself.”

Constantine scoffs, because there is no appropriate response to that that he’s comfortable articulating. He bumps her with his shoulder again. “Sure that demon didn’t knock your head, love? You’re talking nonsense.”

“I mean it!” The annoyance in her voice agrees. “I didn’t doubt you for an instant.”

“Nor I you,” he says. Silence hangs in the air, heavy as wormwood smoke. He opens his mouth, pauses, and says, “Thank you,” at the exact moment that Zari says the same.

Unable to avoid it any longer, they turn to face one another. John smirks, in part because it is the only thing more comfortable than a scowl, in part because it is genuinely funny, the two of them undone not by the intrusion of a demon but by their own incompetence at expressing their emotions. He puts a lid on that thought and tucks it away to never be dealt with.

“Stop laughing,” Zari says, but there’s a smile on her face, too. The two of them, naked in a summoning circle, he with a bruise blooming over his chin and her with chalk dust on her hands. An absurd sight. Still, she leans into him, her head on his shoulder. “That was exhausting. Let’s never do it again.”

He laughs out loud this time, raising one hand to toy with her hairband until her hair falls softly to her shoulders. Zari is many things — Legend, a second, different Zari, a social media influencer, a mystery to be solved, a lover. Zari with her hair down, crimped from the tightness of the band, is a particular favorite. Her carefully constructed persona is no match for mussed hair and sleepy eyes. She’s beautiful, always, but there is something captivating about Zari with her makeup smeared, her guard down.

He draws a finger through the streaks of mascara on her cheeks, grinning. “You’re a mess.”

“Oh, and you’re just perfectly put together,” she says, with a click of her tongue. “You need ice and ibuprofen, and I _know_ you’d rather sit there and suffer than admit it.” She moves to stand, but John turns her face toward his, pressing his lips to her mascara-stained cheek, the tip of her nose, the softness of her lips. He can feel her sigh with exasperation before relaxing into it, her hands tangling in his hair.

Still, she pulls away. “Ibuprofen, at least,” she says, her eyes narrowed and staring directly into his.

“No need.” His voice is a low growl. “Plenty of time for that later.” He draws her closer, and she shifts until she’s seated in his lap. “We were rudely interrupted earlier. Where were we?”

Zari’s eyes drift from his to the edge of the circle, now within arm’s reach.

“Good point,” he says, and draws a hand through the chalk lines, breaking the circle and erasing the banishment command. Better safe than sorry; he is _not_ in the mood for further interruptions. “Any other adherences to accuracy I should know about?”

She looks upward in thought, drawing a breath in through her nose. After a moment’s pause, she kisses him. It isn’t a gentle kiss; he doesn’t want it to be. There’s a ferocity to Zari he likes, a low-level sense of aggravation and aggression that comes out at odd, unexpected moments. Not that her sharply biting his lip is unexpected — she knows what he likes, what she likes and isn’t afraid to act on it. He admires that. She’d make a good _wizard or whatever_ , if she was so inclined.

But there are other more pressing matters: her hands in his hair, his hands at her waist, her lips ghosting over the bruise growing at his chin, on his neck, whispering something filthy in his ear. He likes that, too.

His hands move over her body, brushing her cheek, her shoulders, her waist, her thighs. He wants to touch her all at once, and he pulls her closer, pressing his chest to hers. Their bodies move together, breathing, shifting, until she pushes his shoulders and he acquiesces, once again on his back on the cool hardwood floor.

There’s no surrendering of power this time. They’ve had enough of that, the two of them — there’s no lack of trust, just a mutual desire to show one another how appreciative they are through simple, carnal pleasure. Zari moves down his body and takes his stiffening cock into her mouth, and now, beyond the need for coyness and games, he moans to let her know how good it feels. His hands twist in her hair; not pushing, not pulling, just holding on to her as if she’ll drift away if he doesn’t. You must hold fast to things if you don’t want them to slip away; if any man knows this, it’s John Constantine, with skin under his nails from holding too tightly as person after person is dragged away.

His breathing is shallow as she teases him with her mouth and hands, drawing circles around the head of his cock with her tongue. He wants to tell her she’s a genius or some kind of reincarnated lust deity, but it’s all he can do to prop himself up on his elbows and watch her, the word “goddess,” spilling from his mouth as if summoned.

Zari pauses in her busy work, warm brown eyes meeting his. She licks her lips and smiles, and that’s all he can tolerate — with a groan, he moves his hands down to her hips (unthinking, he falls backward and nearly smacks his head on the floor) and pulls her forward, mumbling, “Please, Zari.” She acquiesces; he doesn’t need to beg anymore, this is no power play, just an honest desire to make one another feel as good as possible. Once straddling him, poised directly above his cock, she leans down and sucks at his neck. It will leave a mark above his shirt collar and everybody will notice and know what’s happened, and he’ll smirk and she’ll look embarrassed but neither of them will regret it in the slightest.

She moves off of him with agonizing slowness, rising with a grace he couldn’t muster if he practiced for a thousand years, and bends to fish a condom from where she knows it’s tucked in his trouser pocket. He watches her, the lovely curve of her hips, the litheness of her legs, the visible slick on her inner thigh. He feels himself grow even harder at the sight — perhaps it’s crass to notice such a thing, but John is a man fond of the truth of things, their disgusting, unappealing undersides. He _loves_ crassness, thrives on it, would tell her he’s never seen a sight so beautiful as the slick on her thigh if she wouldn’t slap him upside the head and call him disgusting for it.

It might be worth it, and he opens his mouth to speak but Zari is back beside him, having torn open the wrapper and tossed it to the side. She rolls the condom down his aching cock, taking her time about it. John pushes himself up again, wraps one arm around her and uses the other hand to tilt her chin up so he can kiss her. Zari’s hands stay busy as he explores her mouth with his tongue. Soon enough, she grinds her body against him, wrapping one arm around his shoulders to hold him close as she uses her other hand to guide him inside her.

“Jesus _shit-eating_ Christ,” he says, as she moves her hips to encompass him, rising and falling with a rhythm that drives him half-mad. He slips his hand between her legs to stroke her clit with two fingers. She shudders against him, breath coming in gasps.

Ordinarily, John is chatty in bed; he likes the tease, the tendency toward laughter and the delicious sound of a sentence cut off by a moan midway through. But now he is all hunger, guiding Zari’s movements with the hand on her waist, drawing a flutter of moans from her with his fingers. It’s a dance they’ve done before, but there’s an urgency to it this time, a desire to make the other, for these fleeting moments, forget whatever horrors are haunting them. They don’t have to speak it for it to be real, a sort of magic all itself.

Zari comes first with a sharp gasp, sinking her teeth into John’s neck. She pulls him in so close that he swears his ribs may crack, grinding her hips into his, the sounds she makes as she rides out her orgasm sending him tipping over the edge as well. He lets out a flurry of curses, withdrawing his fingers from between her legs and wrapping both arms around her, holding her close as their chests heave in unison until their breathing slows, her head nestled in his shoulder, his in hers.

“Good one, love,” he says after a long pause, and she gives him a shove. Laughing, he lays down with his arms behind his head. She climbs off of him and tucks herself in at his side regardless, grumbling about the hardness of the floor as she does so.

“How do you think I feel?” he asks, groping blindly for the cigarette he’d let her flick away. “I’ve been lying on this godforsaken floor for what feels like a century. My bones ache like Boris’ saggy—” Zari slaps him on the arm, glaring.

After a moment of fumbling, success. He tucks the cigarette between his lips, grinning at her. “Beaten by a demon, ridden by a goddess, this craggy ol’ body has seen better days.”

As always, Zari flicks the cigarette out of his mouth. He didn’t want it anyway. John slips his arm beneath her body, pulling her closer and planting a kiss on the tip of her nose. “Thank you,” he says again. Perhaps it’s about the lovely shag. Perhaps it’s about something else.

He doesn’t specify, but she slides her arm around him in response and squeezes. “Thank you,” she says into his neck, and there’s a shiver that buzzes down his spine.

They lay there for a while, unspeaking, content in the company of one another and, miraculously, themselves.


End file.
